“…I’m having the chimney expanded”—Pee-wee Herman
A while back, I wrote about watching Muppet Family Christmas and the experience of seeing Jim Henson appear just before the credits roll. Without fail, when my friends and I watched that special together during my annual holiday party everyone would fall silent when he stepped onscreen. People would hold their breath, some would cry. It didn’t matter who was there, the age range of the guests, or if my friends (or friends of friends) didn’t watch much TV and were confused by the concept of the party—Jim Henson transcended all that.
I didn’t expect to feel that way again. But this year, I rewatched Christmas at Pee-wee’s Playhouse.
I hadn’t seen it in a while (I always cycle through different specials, sometimes all cartoons, sometimes ‘60s and ‘70s variety shows, sometimes all British Stuff—so I don’t wear anything out, as it were. You don’t want to lose the hit of pure joy that can only come from watching John Denver wrassle a bear at Christmas) and I was stunned, once again, by how weird and joyous and alive it feels.
Christmas at Pee-wees Playhouse might be the greatest Christmas special.
Unlike A Garfield Christmas Show, it doesn’t veer into sentimentality.
Unlike A Charlie Brown Christmas, it doesn’t veer into religiosity.
Unlike The Monkees’ Christmas episode, it doesn’t veer into an incredible a capella performance/glorious end credits sequence.
It’s not as winking as Stephen Colbert’s special, or Dave Foley’s, both of which require expert level knowledge of old 1960s and ‘70 variety shows to reach their heights—to say nothing of AD/BC (the funniest thing that has ever been put on film) which will probably land with a thud if you have haven’t watched Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell a number of times that could be classified as unhealthy.
The Playhouse itself, a wonderland on a normal day, becomes an EXPLOSION of tacky US-ian Art Deco/Mid-Century Modern Christmas.
Pee-wee’s special, like the best kids’ stuff, works on a lot of levels. It’s ridiculous and fun; if you’re a kid, you get to watch puppets and Claymation dinosaurs and scream real loud, and you can identify with Pee-wee, who is a bratty id of a person most of the time. If you’re an adult of a certain age, you get to be amused by the celebrities of a bygone era, and appreciate that Pee-wee brought Frankie and Annette and the Del Rubio Triplets out. If you’re a slightly younger adult, you get to shriek THAT’S LAWRENCE FISHBURNE??? when Cowboy Curtis walks onscreen. And if you’re a gay adult, you get to be extremely amused by how much Pee-wee is winking at you, specifically, with the all those cameos.
Much has been said about the fizzy queer energy of the special. It’s almost entirely populated by queer icons and camp icons (not the same thing but a lot of overlap) along with winning turns from the regular cast of Pee-wee’s Playhouse—you should steer your dinghy over to Matt Baume’s Culture Cruise for more on that.
Baume points out that the special becomes a haven, a queer found family that welcomes people who were not welcome in Reagan’s America, or Bush’s or that other guy’s, or, indeed, in roughly half of the states of this country now. (I’m unwelcome in the state where I spent most of my youth! I mean, I never felt welcome, but it’s interesting to hear a Senator say it.)
I’d like to go even a step further to acknowledge that in the special, Grace Jones, Black androgynous singer/queer icon/action star, was being shipped to the White House to perform. Specifically to perform during the last Christmas the Reagans spent in the White House, before G.H.W. Bush took over in January to begin his reign of picking (and losing) fights with fictional characters. Instead she ends up at the Playhouse, which in a world where Magic Screen and Magic Johnson are cousins, are easily mixed up.
And what does she do when she’s let out of the box?
According to Rubens himself, she sings David Bowie’s arrangement of “Little Drummer Boy”—which is not only the best possible update of Bowie’s duet with Bing Crosby, but also means that she’s performing a song about a kid who’s too poor to buy a gift, and so… performs a song. (And somehow gives the worst possible gift for an infant, winning a competition that includes two different types of incense.)
After the song, she gets back in the box. She’s a guest star, and in the world of Christmas specials she can’t stay forever, but again, in the world of the special, the enthusiastic found family of the Playhouse gave her a brief respite from the kind of people you’d meet in Ronald Reagan’s White House. Kind of like the break weirdos get watching a Pee-wee Herman Christmas show while they visit their families.
And the best thing of all is that Christmas at Pee-wee’s Playhouse really does get at, dare I say, the spirit of Christmas. What I would say is the true spirit of Christmas, in that it’s purely about getting gifts… until it does a very gentle sidestep into being about the giving of gifts. But even then, it doesn’t get all sappy about it.
Pee-wee has one concern: presents.
We join him in media res making a Christmas list. His latest Christmas list—we’re never told how many there have been, only that we’re joining a capitalist orgy that’s been going on for a while. When Conky prints it out it’s like a CVS receipt.
In the very next scene, Pee-wee acknowledges that he was so busy thinking about his Christmas list that he forgot to decorate the Playhouse, and states the show’s thesis with no prompting: Christmas is the time when we should be thinking about others. But he immediately asks for two wishes from Jambi, who agrees when he finds out it’s Christmas, and Pee-wee suffers zero consequences for his selfishness. Then he orders Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello to make him 1,000 Christmas cards, and only feeds them bread and water. When he turns his attention to the stockings—the only decorating he does himself—he hangs stockings for all the denizens of the Playhouse, but he hangs two adult-sleeping-bag-sized stockings for himself.
The gift-centric focus continues through the whole special: when Mrs. Renee comes over to explain Hanukkah, it’s in the context of exchanging gifts for eight nights. When Ricardo comes over to explain piñatas, what Pee-wee takes away is the most childish joy possible—you get to break things for Christmas—but also, there’s free candy once the piñata breaks. When the special meets its contractual obligation of retelling the Nativity story, even that is edited down to the part where the Three Magi arrive with gifts for Jesus.
Working against this is the fact that the only gifts we see Pee-wee receive are fruitcakes. In the entire 48 minutes, Pee-wee doesn’t get a single present he actually wants. And when Santa shows up (never fear, Santa’s the only deity this special recognizes) he tells Pee-wee that he’s asked for so many gifts, there won’t be enough left for anyone else. Pee-wee’s first instinct is to take everything and run.
The other Playhouse people yell “Pee-wee!!!” in response to his selfishness, but none of them step up to tell him to give the presents back. There’s no higher moral authority, no “adult”—when he learns that he has to choose between “all the presents” and “no presents”, the special leaves him alone to reflect. He doesn’t step out into the snowy night to remember passages from The Gospel of Luke. He doesn’t have an angel showing him alternate realities, even Santa leaves the choice up to him. There’s every indication that if Pee-wee won’t relinquish the gifts, Mr. Claus will unload the sleigh and head back to the North Pole. And again, Pee-wee hasn’t been punished for anything thus far. There’s no reason to think that he’ll face any consequence beyond his friends’ horror.
All Pee-wee is left with is his own belief that “Christmas is a time we should be thinking about others”, repeated back to him in his own voice, echoing around him. No one seconds this, no one backs him up—no one else even knows what he’s thinking. His friends are all faded to black in the background with Santa while he faces his choice alone.
(Might I say, quietly, that in Reagan’s America almost every voice in pop culture, and plenty in legislation, encouraged you to take the shit and run?)
There’s no dogma in this statement, really. It’s tied to Christmas—but a purely gift-based Christmas, with no further narrative framework. No one’s asking you to believe anything, or to follow any rules beyond “Shut up and pay attention when Grace Jones and Charo sing for you.” And I guess “Scream real loud” when the secret word is said, but that’s a year-round Playhouse rule.
(Shit, I said “year”! AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!)
Sorry, I think I’ve gone off into deeper snow a little here. Let me find the path. Pee-wee as a character express the pure Id of childhood: he wants. He wants presents, hot cocoa, twinkly lights, sentient snowpeople, and ice-skating parties. His, and thus, his holiday special’s, understanding of Christmas is expressed purely through receiving gifts. The gifts we see him get all suck, but he receives them with as much enthusiasm as he can feign, and no one seems to clock his growing disgust at all the fruitcakes. (Even when he tells his friends that he’s using them as literal bricks, he doesn’t let on that he hates fruitcake, just that there are so many he found a new use for them.) In giving up all his presents he thinks he’s giving up the core of Christmas—a giant sacrifice by kid/id standards! But even in this moment the special doesn’t betray its tone: Pee-wee resentfully mumbles “OKyoucanhaveallmypresents” in exactly the voice you use to “apologize” to a sibling to get your parents off your back.
And then Santa offers him a gift—becoming Santa’s Helper on Christmas Eve—that transcends any material object he might find under his fabulous tree.
A gift that stands in direct opposition to the Black Friday stampedes and Sears Wishbooks that punctuated Christmas in the 1980s and ‘90s.
Pee-wee gets the best possible gift without learning a lesson (he already knew the thing about thinking about others), without an adult or authority figure lecturing him, without changing who he is or how he looks, without making any compromise with society outside of the world of the Playhouse. And having received this gift, he turns to the camera to include the rest of us and uses his second wish from Jambi, not to hang on to one of those presents he gave up, or to make Christmas happen every day, or anything like that, but to wish for peace on earth, and to wish us, the guest beyond the camera, “the very merriest of Christmases, and a Happy New Year”—which on top of being very sweet gives all the kids watching an opportunity to scream again.
Paul Rubens’ estate has given all of ours Ids a great gift this year (AAAAHHHHHH!!!) uploaded Christmas at Pee-wee’s Playhouse to Youtube, in glorious HD, where you can watch it as often as you want to, for glorious free.
Has there ever been a Christmas special that ended with joyful screaming? Could there be a better note to end on? Elevate the Id as much as you want, it won’t be denied.
Leah Schnelbach is always happy to scream real loud about Paul Rubens. Come talk to the them in the room made of fruitcakes that is zombie twitter or Blue Sky or whatever.
